Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:15:07.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Politeness theory and Shakespeare's four major tragedies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Roger Brown  and
Albert Gilman
Roger Brown
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Albert Gilman
Affiliation:
Department of English, Boston University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987) have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The tragedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period; (2) the psychological soliloquies in the tragedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory; and (3) the tragedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory. The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness); interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the tragedies are illustrated. (Politeness theory, speech act theory, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, theory of literature, Shakespeare studies)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 159 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, E. A. (1925). A Shakespearean grammar. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Alrabaa, S. (1985). The use of address pronouns by Egyptian adults. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 645–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ascham, R. ([1570] 1970). The scholemaster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barber, C. (1976). Early modern English. London: Deutsch.Google Scholar
Barber, C. ([1981] 1987). “You” and “thee” in Shakespeare's Richard III. Leeds Studies in English New Series 12: 273–89. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 163–79.Google Scholar
Barnet, S. (ed.). (1963). Macbeth. (Signet Classic Shakespeare.) New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Baxter, L. A. (1984). An investigation of compliance-gaining as politeness. Human Communication Research 10: 427–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, N. F. (1983). Shakespeare's language: An introduction. New York: St. Martin's.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, S. (1985). Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different. Paper presented at the International Pragmatic Conference, Viareggio, Italy.Google Scholar
Bradley, A. C. (1905). Shakespearean tragedy. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Brook, G. L. (1976). The language of Shakespeare. London: André Deutsch.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1965). Social psychology. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.Google Scholar
Brown, R., & Gilman, A. (1960). The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Style in language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 253–76.Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E. N. (ed.), Questions and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, P. (1987). Politeness: Some universels in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton, D. M. (1973). Shakespeare's grammatical style. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Byrne, Sister St. Geraldine (1936). Shakespeare's use of the pronoun of address. Its significance in characterization and motivation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America.Google Scholar
Castiglione, B. ([1528] 1966). The book of the courtier. Trans, by SirHoby, Thomas, 1561. New York: Dutton Everyman.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Lucy, P. (1975). Understanding what is meant from what is said: A study in conversationally conveyed results. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 14: 56–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Schunk, D. H. (1980). Polite response to polite requests. Cognition 8: 111–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cody, M., McLaughlin, M., & Schneider, J. (1981). The impact of relational consequences and intimacy on the selection of interpersonal persuasion tactics: A reanalysis. Communication Quarterly 29: 91–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
della Casa, G. ([1558] 1958). Galateo. Trans, by Pine-Coffin, R. S.. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Doran, M. (1976). Shakespeare's dramatic language. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Elias, N. ([1939] 1978). The history of manners. Vol. 1, The civilizing process. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
SirElyot, Thomas ([1531] 1962). The book named the Governor. Ed. by Lehmberg, S. E.. New York: Dutton Everyman.Google Scholar
Falbo, T., & Peplau, L. A. (1980). Power strategies in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38: 618–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fang, H., & Heng, J. H. (1983). Social changes and changing address norms in China. Language in Society 12: 495–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, B., & Nolen, W. (1981). The association of deference with linguistic form. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27: 93–109.Google Scholar
Fraser, R. (ed.). (1963). King Lear. (Signet Classic Shakespeare.) New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Friedrich, P. (1966). Structural implications of Russian pronominal usage. In Bright, W. (ed.), Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton. 214–59.Google Scholar
Gillett, P. J. ([1974] 1987). Me, U, and Non-U: Class connotations of two Shakespearean idioms. Shakespeare Quarterly 25(3): 297–3O9. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 117–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. (1956). The nature of deference and demeanor. American Anthropologist 58: 473–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, E. N. (ed.). (1978). Questions and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, D., & Lakoff, G. (1971). Conversational postulation. In Papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago. 63–84.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics, III: Speech acts. New York: Academic. 41–58.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, A. D. (1980a). Social interactional and sociolinguistic rules. Social Forces 58: 789–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, A. D. (1980b). Mishearings, misunderstandings, and other non-successes in talk: A plea for redress of speaker-oriented bias. Sociological Inquiry 50: 31–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, A. D. (1980c). Selection and labelling of instrumentalities of verbal manipulation. Discourse Processes 3: 203–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, R. (1984). Truth and politeness: A study in the pragmatics of Egyptian Arabic conversation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University.Google Scholar
Holtgraves, T. (1986). Language structure in social interaction: Perceptions of direct and indirect speech acts and interactants who use them. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 305–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtgraves, T., Srull, T. K., & Socall, D. (in press). Conversation memory: The effects of Speaker status on memory for the assertiveness of conversation remarks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.Google Scholar
Hubler, E. (ed.). (1963). Hamlet. (Signet Classic Shakespeare.) New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Hulme, H. M. (1962). Explorations in Shakespeare's language: Some problems of word meaning in the dramatic text. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Hussey, S. S. (1982). The literary language of Shakespeare. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1983). Report from an undeveloped country. In Bain, B. (ed.), The sociogenics of language and human conduct. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1972). Growth and structure of the English language. 9th ed.Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Joseph, Sister M. (1966). Shakespeare's use of the arts of language. New York: Hafner.Google Scholar
Kempff, R. (1985). Pronouns and terms of address in Neues Deutschland. Language in Society 14: 223–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kernan, A. (ed.). (1963). Othello. (Signet Classic Shakespeare.) New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Kittredge, G. L. (1916). Shakespeare: An Address. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kroger, R. O., Wood, L. A., & Kim, V. (1984). Are the rules of address universal? III Comparison of Chinese, Greek, and Korean usage. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 15: 273–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W., & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as discourse. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Lambert, W. E., & Tucker, G. R. (1976). Tu, vous, usted. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1977). Social deixis in a Tamil village. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1982). Caste rank and verbal interaction in Tamilnadu. In McGilvray, D. B. (ed.), Caste ideology and interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 99–235.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lustig, M. W., & King, S. (1980). The effect of communication apprehension and situation on communication strategy choices. Human Communication Research 7: 74–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, M. ([1960] 1963). Jacobean Shakespeare: Some observations on the construction of the tragedies. In Brown, J. R. & Harris, B. (eds.), Stratford upon Avon studies: Jacobean theater Vol. 1. London: Arnold. Reprinted in A. Kernan (ed.), Othello. (Signet Classic Shakespeare.) New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Mehrotra, R. R. (1981). Non-kin forms of address in Hindi. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 32: 121–37.Google Scholar
Millward, C. ([1966] 1987). Pronominal cases in Shakespearean imperatives. Language 42: 10–17. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 301–08.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulholland, J. ([1967] 1987). “Thou” and “you” in Shakespeare: A study in the second person pronoun. English Studies 48: 1–9. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 153–61.Google Scholar
Ogino, T. (1986). Quantification of politeness based on the usage patterns of honorific expressions. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 58: 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onions, C. T. ([1911] 1986). A Shakespeare glossary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paulston, C. B. (1976). Pronouns of address in Swedish: Social class semantics and a changing system. Language in Society 5: 359–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poutsma, H. A. (1914). A grammar of late modern English. Groningen.Google Scholar
Quirk, R. ([1971] 1987). Shakespeare and the English language. In Muir, K. & Schoenbaum, S. (eds.), A new companion to Shakespeare studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 67–82. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 3–21.Google Scholar
Replogle, C. ([1973] 1987). Shakespeare's salutations: A study in stylistic etiquette. Studies in Philology 70: 172–86. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 101–15.Google Scholar
Sadock, J. (1974). Towards a linguistic theory of speech acts. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Salmon, V. ([1965] 1987). Sentence structures in colloquial Shakespearian English. Transactions of the Philological Society. 105–40. Reprinted in V. Salmon & E. Burness (eds.), A reader in the language of Shakespearean drama. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 265–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1976). The classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slugoski, B. R. (1985). Grice's theory of conversation as a social psychological model. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Slugoski, B. R., & Turnbull, W. (in press). Cruel to be kind and kind to be cruel: Sarcasm, banter, and social relations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology.Google Scholar
Spevack, M. (1973). The Harvard concordance to Shakespeare. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stone, O. (1966). Social mobility in England, 1500–1700. Past and Present 33: 17–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. ([1934] 1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Whigham, F. (1984). Ambition and privilege: The social tropes of Elizabethan courtesy theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wildeblood, J. (1965). The polite world. A guide to English manners and deportment from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yassin, M. S. F. (1975). A linguistic study of forms of address in Kuwaiti colloquial Arabic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Leeds University.Google Scholar